Your Business Exit, Your Way: A Guide for Entrepreneurs
InsightsBy Troy Noor, CFP®, CFA®
Typically, the journey to build a thriving business is filled with enthusiasm, commitment, and relentless hard work. But every business venture eventually reaches a turning point: the business exit. Whether it’s a strategic financial decision or an unanticipated event, your financial future, legacy, and confidence can all be profoundly impacted by your business exit.
In this article, we explore strategies for how you can confidently take charge of your departure by providing a road map for carefully navigating the different phases of leaving your business strategically. We at Boulevard Wealth Management want to help you exit on your own terms so you can enjoy the fruits of your hard work.
Imagine Your Future
What do you foresee for the legacy of your business? Who carries on your dream?
It’s smart to give significant thought to these and many other questions, particularly those that deal with your involvement (if any) in the company later on. When you leave the company in five or 10 years, picture how it might have changed. The first step to envisioning your business’s future should be setting this foundation.Be Ready for Anything
When you prepare for the future of your company, remember that even the best-laid plans can be disrupted by unforeseen circumstances. Be prepared for the unexpected.
In addition to affecting daily operations if you’re not around, a late-life illness or serious accident can have a huge impact on the business’s value to prospective buyers. Verify you have backup plans in place in the event that a health issue derails the terms and conditions of your exit.
Create a Succession Plan Before Your Business Exit
This is particularly relevant if you intend to pass your company on to family members or key staff members. Employees, customers, and vendors all need confidence that the business can run properly with your successors in charge, and this trust takes time. Additionally, you want to feel confident in advance that the young professionals who run the company after your departure have the skills and qualities necessary to carry on your accomplishment.
Combine Your Business Exit and Your Personal Financial Plan
On average, 80-90 percent of an entrepreneur’s wealth is tied up in their business. That means the owner may have more liquid wealth at the time of the exit and sale than they have ever had.
Then what?
Every business owner must be ready for this windfall and create a carefully crafted financial and retirement plan. After giving up their life’s work and needing to decide how to effectively reinvest or divide the earnings of their business sale, retiring entrepreneurs may feel overwhelmed and lost without such a strategy.This is the core of what Boulevard Wealth Management offers our business-owner clients.
Remake Yourself
As business owners ourselves, we are all too aware of how demanding operating a business can be, and how hard it can be to just shut off the inner drive and motivation when the purchase deal is finalized. Based on our experience, it’s wise for retired business owners to focus their still-considerable energy on other projects.
This can include volunteering or charitable giving, spending time with loved ones, or engaging in long-sought hobbies. Think about your new life and sense of purpose and lay a foundation ahead of time for your legacy and what’s meaningful to you.
Don’t Do a Business Exit Alone: Bring Your Team Together
Many business owners love the thought of being self-sufficient. After all, you may have spent the majority of your adult life as the captain of your own business ship.
In the case of business transitions, however, you should put together a group of professionals to help you with this process. This includes qualified lawyers, tax professionals, and financial advisors.
Get Started Today Preparing Your Business Exit
Your business exit is unique. Together, let’s design a customized strategy that matches your financial goals.
In addition to our business-exit consulting knowledge and experience, our team at Boulevard Wealth Management is committed to a fiduciary standard of practice to improve your outcomes. Our firm’s mission, vision, and values speak to this commitment and guide our daily work. We help you plan with purpose so you can live financially confident.
To schedule a meeting, call (763) 244-1191 or email troy@blvdwealth.com.
About Troy
Troy Noor, CFP®, CFA® is the Executive Director and Director of Portfolio Management at Boulevard Wealth Management, a financial services firm in Twin Cities, Minnesota, dedicated to addressing client goals through a team-based, fiduciary approach. With over 28 years of experience in the financial industry, Troy specializes in helping executives with equity compensation and business owners maximize their wealth and minimize taxes. His work centers on creating customized investment strategies, optimizing portfolio risk, and designing financial plans that empower clients to pursue financial independence. Guided by his passion for stewardship, Troy strives to help clients align their financial resources with their long-term goals while fostering positive impacts on families and communities for generations. His approach combines technical proficiency—leveraging tools like tax harvesting and mean-variance optimization—with a faith-driven commitment to acting in his clients’ best interests.
Troy earned his Bachelor of Applied Science in International Business and holds the distinguished CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® and Chartered Financial Analyst® designations. Beyond his professional roles, he has served as a Board Member for the Eden Prairie Chamber of Commerce, currently serves on the board of Ambassadors for Business, and leads a men’s Bible study group, reflecting his dedication to community and faith. Outside the office, Troy enjoys traveling, fishing, and gardening. He lives by the principle of stewardship, aspiring to hear, “Well done, my good and faithful servant” at the end of his journey. To learn more about Troy, connect with him on LinkedIn.